


days are good, and that's the way it should be

by orphan_account



Series: your smile shines so bright (meremine) [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 22:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11930811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: christine notices a lot of things; she notices how, during certain days, some people seem more down than during others, so she acts appropriately. she schedules hastily put together movie nights and feel-good activities so that they feel at least a bit better, if not completely fine. similarly, christine sees how michael smiled a little birghter when jeremy came into the room, and the way jeremy looks at michael like he's the brightest star in the sky, and although her heart feels like it's shattering and the pain is too much to handle, she swallows the tears down and acts appropriately.





	days are good, and that's the way it should be

**Author's Note:**

> note: tw for vomit and mentions of abuse!! stay safe kiddos!!!!
> 
> and uh, if it's not obvious, this is a hanahaki disease au. so yeah. sorry christine ilu.
> 
> beta-read by the lovely @angdrewandcocoa and @capri-sunqueen on tumblr!!

Christine Canigula had always been more observant than most people. She noticed the happy things, like how, sometimes, Chloe, Brooke and Jenna would arrive late to their shared lunch period, hair slightly messed or clothes slightly askew; smiles wide and lipstick smudged. She also noticed the sad undertones concealed underneath her friends’ usually happy demeanors; how Rich seemed off on certain days, how, in place of his usual muscle tee, he'd sport a cute flannel or windbreaker, and if the sleeves slipped too high up his arms he’d hurriedly pull them down or if Jake had jokingly punched him he'd conceal a wince, to which he'd receive endless apologies.

Of course, like many other things in her life, Christine would act appropriately to any given situation, like how she would fetch tissues for Brooke when her favorite character died in a binge-watching of her favorite show, and how when Rich got kicked out of his home she managed to convince her parents to let him stay with them.

And so, she led him to the nurses' office to get patched up, and called the cops on his dad, and smiled coyly at the girls, teasing them endlessly about the things that happened to the couple (could it even be called a couple? After all, there were three people in it,) behind closed doors and when they thought people weren't looking.

And yet, some things she didn't want to notice, like the particularly bad gash on Rich's back, which made her both vomit up words of comfort and, later on, when he couldn't see her, her lunch; or how Jeremy Heere, one of the major sources of her affections, had a very large, noticeable crush on a Michael Mell, who just so happened to be the other source. 

To her, it seemed silly, and did it not? How one person was possible of liking two others so intimately, and yet could not get a shred of reciprocated affection in return. Yet she noticed how Michael smiled a little brighter when Jeremy came into the room, how Jeremy looked at Michael like he was the brightest star in the whole universe, when it was filled with billions of others, and, as much as it hurt, like she swallowing shards of glass and downing a mug full of bleach, she forced her affections down to a part of her that wouldn't be noticed to the unattentive eye, and acted appropriately.

"You know it's obvious, right?" She hummed, twirling her pencil as they worked on their biology homework. "I mean, everyone can see how much you like Michael." At his flushing and sputters, she giggled, a sound forced out of her throat that felt like she was vomiting again, yet this time, instead of a turkey sandwich, she was vomiting up nails and flower petals. "Don't worry, I won't tell him." 

"Why don't you tell him?" Christine asked. Internally, she knew the answer. Because he doesn't want to fuck up their friendship, the voice in her head whispered. The same reason you won't tell them you love them, and the same reason why you vomit up flower petals every night in the toilet. She winced at the thought. ‘Shut up,’ she thought angrily.

Jeremy shrugged non-committedly. "I don’t really know, if I'm being honest." He turned away from her. "It's just that...I don't want to ruin our relationship, y'know? I know he's gay and shit, but...I don't want to give him my heart just to have it given back worse for wear."

The voice in her head spoke again. Just like your heart, in the occasion you tell him and or Michael that you love them more than play rehearsal.

And, like flipping a lightswitch, she muted the voice in her head and forced a smile. It probably looked sad and misshapen, like a clay pot in sculpting class that had been made by someone who didn't really care anymore. The smile felt unnatural, like Christine was putting on a mask, yet, unlike the fronts she put on in drama class, this one felt off, where, instead of feeling like she could ascend beyond the clouds with a dramatic gesture and a pre-made script, she was drowning in an ocean of unreciprocated feelings, like a character in one of her favorite musicals, left to drown in the cold waters formed by her own tears and the hopelessness and unfairness of it all. 

"Yeah," she swallowed, the words scratching on her tongue like nails against a chalkboard, an unpleasant noise she couldn't bear to hear. "Sounds rough." It sounded like the pining and feelings she never wanted to have, two crushes on two people whom she knew were in love with each other, and yet they were too caught up in themselves that the googly-eyed stares from across that classroom were unnoticed, as good as invisible to the two teens.

She slept with the unpleasant feeling in her stomach every night, one of despair and loneliness, of flowers clogging up her systems because they were so, so in love with each other, and although it hurt, to see them in love with someone else and not with her, it was worth it, to see them happy and smiling, making jokes to each other and laughing, because they deserved each other, for they'd known each other for so, so long and Christine would only be a burden on their already complicated lives.

She tolerated the hopelessness of it all and the flowers that she had to regurgitate when it really was too much because, even when the flowers turned to thorns and the bile turned to sickening blood, she wanted to see them happy, to see them smiling, because she was so, so in love with them, and the bubbly feeling she'd receive when they did something particularly breath-taking was worth it.

And even if she knew she either had to give up her affections for them or die (and she'd die any day for them, need it be or not), she smiled at them in the hallways and laughed at their stupid puns and jokes, because in her opinion, Jeremy and Michael were worth the pain, because Christine loved them oh, so much, and vomiting up petals and thorns everyday was worth seeing them smile.


End file.
